Pantani's mum: "Girlfriend caused cocaine habit"
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roads surrounding his native Cesenatico, his mother, Antonina, aimed
an indignant outburst at il Pirata’s former girlfriend, Christina
Jonsson.
Speaking live on Italian television after Thursday’s eleventh stage of
the Giro d’Italia, Mrs Pantani accused Jonsson of fostering the
cocaine habit which ultimately killed the 1998 Tour and Giro winner on
February 14 this year.
"His woman used to say to him 'Take this, it’ll do you good'," Mrs
Pantani said of Jonsson, who met her son in a Cesenatico night club
where she worked as a dancer in 1996. "I’m ashamed to have allowed her
to stay in my house for eight years. It was Marco who accused her of
giving him that stuff, and he left it written that he wanted it known.
That was what convinced me that I should tell the magistrates
investigating his death about it."
Mrs Pantani’s shocking allegations could not depict a more different
version of events to the one given by Jonsson to Swiss magazine
"L’Hebdo" in a recent interview. There, Jonsson described how, around
ten days after his exclusion from the 1999 Giro d’Italia at Madonna di
Campiglio, her boyfriend suddenly announced that he had begun to snort
cocaine. "When Marco told me he was using cocaine, I took it as a hint
that he wanted me to take it, too. If I loved him, I’d take it, too,
as a demonstration of my love… That period was a nightmare," Jonsson
recalled.
Yesterday the investigation into Pantani’s death continued with the
interrogation of one of the four individuals arrested on suspicion of
supplying the late cyclist with his last doses of cocaine. The Russian
lady Elena Korovina was questioned yesterday afternoon by judge Paolo
Gengarelli in Pesaro. "Mrs Korovina maintains that she is extraneous
to the whole affair," commented Korovina’s lawyer, Massimo Succi.
"Gengarelli gave his authorisation for her period of isolation to be
ended, but she surprised everyone by saying she was fine in prison."
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